Seahawks tied for seventh in NFL rankings of ‘net rest'

The Seahawks' 2026 regular-season schedule, along with containing six prime-time games and six games not played on a Sunday, includes what might seem like a secret advantage.

The Seahawks are tied for seventh in a metric that has become increasingly discussed when analyzing schedules called "net rest.

As computed by Arif Hasan of wideleft.football, the Seahawks have a plus-eight net rest advantage for the season.

To explain, a team gets a positive net rest when it has at least one more day off since it last played a game than its opponent. Say the Seahawks and Rams play on a Sunday. If Seattle played the previous Sunday and Los Angeles played on the previous Monday, the Seahawks have a plus-one rest advantage, the Rams minus-one.

Net rest has become particularly popular among those who like to wager on football and look long and hard for any edge.

The Seahawks had a plus-eight net rest last year as well, as reported by football analyst Warren Sharp, which was fifth best in the NFL. You may not need reminding that Seattle responded by going 14-3 and winning the Super Bowl.

Two teams just above the Seahawks last year in net rest were the Rams (plus-10) and 49ers (plus-nine) - each of whom made the playoffs - while the Raiders - who went 3-14 and fired Pete Carroll - had the worst net rest in the league at minus-19. Those stats would seem to give the metric some credibility, though the two teams at the top last year didn't necessarily take advantage. Detroit had the best net rest last season at plus-13 but fell to 9-8 a year after going 15-2, while the Dolphins - who went 7-10 and fired coach Mike McDaniel - were next at plus-11.

The team with the best rest differential this year?

The Bears at plus-15 followed by the Bills at plus-14 and Dallas at 11.5. The worst? The Chargers at minus-24 (the Eagles are next-to-last at minus-15 and the Raiders next at minus-13.5).

The Seahawks' plus-eight net rest number might not seem quite as impressive when realizing it's hugely influenced by two games.

The Seahawks get a plus-seven for playing the 49ers on Nov. 29 after their bye, while San Francisco plays the previous Sunday, and a plus-four for playing at Arizona in Week 2 on a Sunday after opening the season on a Wednesday.

Those numbers make up for a couple of minus-games, notably a minus-four when playing Dallas on a Monday night, Dec. 7, when the Cowboys will have been off for 11 days after playing on Thanksgiving.

But any rest is an advantage, right?

Not necessarily, according to the NFL.

Much was made when the schedule was released last week of a few disparities in how often teams play other teams coming off byes.

For instance, the Chargers and Eagles are at the bottom of the net rest stat largely because each team is playing four games against teams coming off byes.

The Raiders and Rams will each play three teams coming off byes.

The Seahawks are one of 15 teams this year that do not play any games against opponents coming off byes.

On the surface, that seems like a good thing for the Seahawks.

NFL officials, in a conference call last week to discuss the schedule, said their data shows there has been no real discernible advantage in recent years for teams coming off byes playing against teams who are not coming off byes.

In fact, over the last two seasons, teams coming off a bye playing against teams that are not coming off a bye are just 27-27.

Mike North, the NFL's vice president of broadcast planning, said because of that data, the league does not feel it has to try to assure all teams are playing the same amount of games - or close to it - against teams coming off byes.

"We've got a really robust data and analytics team here in the office … and they have been very clear with us that rest disparity is not a thing," North said. "You do not have a competitive advantage when you're coming off your bye, and you certainly don't have a competitive advantage when you're one day, two days or three days more well-rested. If the data suggest that there's a there there, we will adjust. We absolutely will.

"But we've been very conscious, we've been very careful, and we've been very connected with our data team … (they) have been adamant that rest disparity does not impact performance, expected win percentage, expected points scored."

North even threw out a reason for why he thinks that is - changes in the collective bargaining agreement passed in 2020 that require teams to give players at least four consecutive days off during their bye week.

North surmised that the required time away from football may mitigate any advantage from getting extra rest.

"Players having to be out of the building for four consecutive days, they come back, they ramp back up and they have to play a team that gets to stay in their routine, he said.

What may hardly need repeating, given how competitive the NFL is, is that a few fortunate bounces of the ball on gameday may matter most of all.

The Seahawks won both of their games coming off byes during Mike Macdonald's two seasons as head coach, each time going on the road - 20-17 at San Francisco in 2024 and 38-14 last year at Washington.

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